The modern ballistic missile is based on a design in use since the German V-2 rocket which the Nazis used during World War II to terrorize and kill the British. But because the warhead used conventional explosives—roughly one ton of TNT—the damage was limited. Nevertheless, ballistic missiles have become both the essential long range artillery of modern warfare, and the means par excellence of exerting international pressure. Much of their current usefulness depends on the current lack of defenses against them.
A ballistic missile can be launched from land, from a silo, from mobile platforms on trucks or trains, from submarine or ship, or from an airplane. The U.S., Russia, the UK, France, and China each also have missiles (SLBMs), that are launched from submarines underwater, at sea, or in port. After launch, a ballistic missiles arches up from one point, and lands at another point. All rockets, from fireworks to massive space launchers, carry both fuel and some form of oxygen. Because they do not burn oxygen from the air, ballistic missiles can fly beyond earth’s atmosphere. Long range ballistic missiles spend a majority of their flight time in the vaccum of space. Short-range ballistic missiles may because they can fly where there is little or no air resistance, they can reach speeds up to 20 or more times the speed of sound—some 15,000 miles per hour (7km/sec)—speeds which allow ballistic missiles to go between continents. A missile is called ballistic because, just as one would throw a ball or spear, the rocket’s engine gives the missile an initial push, after which its flight is affected only by gravity. Ballistic missiles do not fly. They go up, and they come down.